Town and Country Planning articles from June 2005

Town and Country Planning archives from June 2005

25 years ago.(t&cp back bites)
June 1, 2005... 'IT ALWAYS struck me as curious,' said Mr Heseltine, addressing the RICS in March, 'that a judge can sentence a man to life imprisonment minutes after a jury verdict, yet a planning inspector can taken an age to reach a decision offer on...

10 years ago.(t&cp back bites)
June 1, 2005... SOMEWHERE in the DOE is a report from the late 1970s which recommended the setting up of urban studies centres nationwide, as a means of helping the adult as well as the young population to have a better understanding of how their towns, cities...

5 years ago.(t&cp back bites)
June 1, 2005... THE OBSTACLES to much higher domestic energy efficiency are no longer technical, but rather the lack of sufficient popular and political demand. To generate such demand, we need more widespread awareness of the kind of energy-efficient housing...

Context: news digest, may 2005.(Public notice)
June 1, 2005... * 10.5 Governance: Following the general election, David Miliband joins the Cabinet as Minister of Communities and Local Government, a new post in the ODPM. Yvette Cooper becomes Minister for Housing and Planning, and Phil Woolas becomes...

New Tomorrow Series paper calls for low-grade agricultural land to be reclaimed for sustainable development.(A VISION FOR ENGLAND'S FUTURE)(The Land Fetish)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... THE TCPA has published the latest in its Tomorrow Series of discussion papers. The Land Fetish, by TCPA President Professor Sir Peter Hall, argues that taxpayers currently pay UK farmers 1.5 billion [pounds sterling] per year to keep vast...

Sustainability key to homes acceptance.(affordable housing)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... THE TCPA has welcomed the Government's recent announcements aimed at helping more people onto the housing ladder through the release of public sector land for affordable homes, and through new home ownership options. But it has warned that...

Views from the regions: Nick Green reports on the views and opinions expressed at the first three public evidence-gathering sessions held by the TCPA's Commission of Inquiry into the disparities of growth across England's regions and the measures needed to tackle national development priorities.(A VISION FOR ENGLAND'S FUTURE)(Town and Country Planning Association)(Conference news)
June 1, 2005... THE FIRST THREE public evidence-gathering sessions of the TCPA's 'Vision for England's Future' Inquiry, led by an independent Commission, took place in Birmingham, Truro, and York, each focusing on a particular key theme. Birmingham--Jobs...

Wind power expectations.(People & Ideas)
June 1, 2005... POWER GENERATION from water has always appealed to me, precisely because it uses endlessly renewable resources. Early in the 1939-45 war I read the inspiring story of the way the Tennessee Valley Authority had transformed a poverty-stricken...

Divides that grow by rail.(Planning World)(railroad financing)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2005... THE NEW summer train timetable from Midland Mainline dropped on my doormat the other day. The company's brand new Meridian diesel trains had allowed it to slash up to 15 minutes from journey times to its key destinations, it proudly announced....

Road pricing--a tax on social cohesion.
June 1, 2005... ALISTAIR DARLING, Secretary of State for Transport, invites a debate over the introduction of a road pricing scheme at least ten years from now, in order to prevent the 'total gridlock' he foresees for about 20 years from now. Like...

A big plate.(The Regeneration Game)(David Miliband)
June 1, 2005... DAVID MILIBAND, the incoming Minister for Communities and Local Government at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), has commenced his tenure with a strategic review of the activities of the department. The ODPM is unique in being...

Ambitious but problematic: Peter Jones, David Hillier, and Daphne Comfort examine the Securing the Future document outlining the Government's Sustainable Development Strategy.(sustainable development)
June 1, 2005... THE Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (1) carried out by a partnership of some of the world's major international bodies between 2001 and 2005 emphasised that that world's population is consuming too many resources to the detriment of the Earth's...

Cities of the fifth wave--the rise of the traditional-modern city: cities have always prospered and grown in parallel with long waves of economic development, and a new wave is just beginning, argues John Montgomery--one that will place demands on the wealth-generating capacity of individual cities and the extent to which they can innovate and adapt their built form to support emerging new economic sectors.(city futures)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2005... THE GLOOMY SCIENCE of economics, in the modern sense, began with the publication of The Wealth of Nations, in three parts, by Adam Smith in the 1770s. (1) Up until this point, no-one had any idea how wealth is generated and how economies grow....

Transport issues in small-town and rural regeneration: Stuart Farthing, Caroline Brown, Vincent Nadin, and Ian Smith report on research into the impact of transport and accessibility issues on small-town economic performance which suggests that the employment role of small towns in rural areas is changing, and that transport and accessibility factors are not strong determinants of employment growth in such areas.(rural employment and transport)(Cover story)
June 1, 2005... THE TRANSPORT and accessibility problems of those living in rural areas are well recognised. The Countryside Agency has set up rural transport partnerships to address the issue. The Market Towns Initiative, which alms to give a 'new lease of...

Redefining rurality: Ray Green questions whether the latest definition of rural areas, adopted in 2004, is conceptually sound, and whether it will be at all useful in the move to plan towns and cities as integral parts of their sub-regions and hinterlands.(rural planning)
June 1, 2005... THE NEW SET of definitions of rural areas, adopted in 2004, divides rural England and Wales into sparse or less sparsely populated areas, each then being categorised by settlement as 'town and fringe', 'village', or 'dispersed'. (1) Advanced...

Landscape character--a spatial framework for local development policy: Paul Mahony and Andrew Wharton examine the role of landscape character within the new planning system, and look at some of the issues raised by using landscape character as a spatial framework for local development policy.(landscape)
June 1, 2005... GOVERNMENT GUIDANCE, as outlined in Planning Policy Statement 1 (PPS1): Creating Sustainable Communities and PPS 12: Local Development Frameworks, places high-quality sustainable development and landscape character at the heart of the new...

Fringe vision: Peter Jones, David Hillier, and Daphne Comfort look at the vision for the countryside in and around England's towns and cities recently put forward by the Countryside Agency and Groundwork.(urban fringe)
June 1, 2005... THE Countryside in and around Towns document, (1) jointly published earlier in 2005 by the Countryside Agency and Groundwork, presents a new vision for the rural-urban fringe. In their foreword to the document, the Chief Executives of the two...

Berlin's remarkable memorial.(Future Work)(Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe)
June 1, 2005... THE VE DAY ceremonies held in London to commemorate the end of the war in Europe 60 years ago were criticised by some for being too low key. But in Berlin something remarkable happened on 10 May --the opening of the Memorial to the Murdered...

How to fight urban domestos.(Going Local)(real estate developers)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2005... 'BIG DEVELOPERS are urban domestos,' wrote Hugh Pearman recently in the Sunday Times. 'They kill 99 per cent of all known existing character.' Anyone who has wandered recently around the depressing Paddington Basin development, or indeed most...

The role of technology in the future of transport.(Transportation of the Future: Technologies, Policies and Perceptions' Conference)(Conference news)
June 1, 2005... 'Transportation of the Future: Technologies, Policies and Perceptions' Conference, organised by the Centre for Transport Policy, and hosted by the Engineering and Technology Board, QEII Centre, London, 19 April 2005 NEARLY ALL OF US would...

Sustainable or gimmick?(Connections)(sustainable housing design)(Viewpoint essay)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... HAVING SPENT many years campaigning for more sustainable housing I was delighted to see an application for nine 'sustainable' homes on the agenda of the conservation areas advisory panel that I chair in West Norfolk. That is, until I saw the...

The end of the high street?(online shopping trend effects city planning)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... INTERNET SHOPPING is surging far faster than previous predictions and topped 3 billion [pounds sterling] in 2004. So should planners be paying attention? Is the end in sight for the majority of high street shopping? Most planners dismiss...

Pong planning.(Connections)(planning commission produced a brochure that features a scratch-and-sniff panel)(Brief article)
June 1, 2005... A LOCAL Planning Commission in the United States has got so fed up with complaints from urban refugees who thought that they were getting fresh air as well as peace and quiet by moving to the country that it has produced a brochure that...